Drive

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn

Written by: Hossein Amini (screenplay); James Sallis (book)










This film came highly recommended from several friends and critics, and when one friend told me it was on Netflix Instant, I immediately made the time to see it.  I was not disappointed.

The main character, forever unnamed (Gosling), is a getaway car driver who spends his days working as a mechanic.  Unfortunately, his boss (Cranston) has some ties to the mob (Brooks, Perlman) that he can't quite get away from.  Meanwhile, the driver has begun courting his neighbor (Mulligan) while her husband is in jail.  When the husband gets out, the driver agrees to help him on a heist.  The robbery is a bust and the husband is killed, and the driver is left to tie all the pieces together before it's too late.

Rarely do action-flicks have any sense of art.  Simultaneously, art house movies rarely have a good grasp of action.  "Drive" is that rare film that has an excellent balance of cinematic art and hard action.

The actors really make the characters come to life in "Drive."  Gosling breaks from his usual "handsome guy" mold for this character.  (OK, he's still handsome, but he's also incredibly violent.)  Albert Brooks, so often the funny guy recently, reveals perhaps his darkest character.  Bryan Cranston is absolutely believable as the man who is always a day late and down on his luck.  Even the hammy Ron Perlman and over-played Carey Mulligan manage to shed their stereotypical roles for a while.

This movie doesn't have a lot of dialogue.  Mainly because it doesn't have to.  In this, it's masterful at telling an entire story in only a few words.  It trusts that the audience can make inferences about things that are only referred to as tangents.

There is some shocking violence, but it's not gratuitous or unnecessary.  Rather, it's used as another medium of through which things are revealed about the characters.  (When you see it, think about which characters use which weapons and what that might say about them.  Come on, folks!  This isn't rocket science!)

If you haven't seen "Drive" yet, I'd definitely recommend it.

The Ides of March

Directed by: George Clooney

Written by: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon

It's not too often that a good political thriller comes along anymore, but "The Ides of March" fills that need exceptionally well.

Stephen Meyers (Gosling) is an up-and-coming campaign strategist who has hitched his wagon to the presidential primary campaign of Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) because of Morris's take-no-prisoners and tell-no-lies style. But when Meyers is contacted by a rival campaign manager (Giamatti), it begins a chain of events that threatens to destroy Meyers's career and derail the Morris campaign entirely. It is in this face of adversity that the characters reveal their true selves and what they are willing to do to take power.

To start, the acting in this film is fantastic. Gosling is just about the weakest link, and it's merely because he under plays his part, which is a bit tough to deal with given that he's protagonist. Marisa Tomei's character of the nitty-gritty-political-journalist is completely unnecessary except to advance one minor plot hitch, but she does a solid job considering the minor role. Clooney and Giamatti are at the top of their game, as is Philip Seymour Hoffman.

What this film does exceptionally well, which has not yet been tackled by a modern political thriller, is show the workings of a modern campaign. Not since "Primary Colors" has a high-profile film tried to cover contemporary election tactics. And "Primary Colors" was based clearly on the Clinton campaign, but "The Ides of March" is not based on an actual campaign, although there are references and allusions to some recent strategies.

There movie does rely on a cliche plot twist at a major key point, which is rather disappointing. (I can't give it away here, as it is basically the climactic turn.) I just felt that with all the creative starts and turns, there could have been something more original to use at that point. To give credit, that one twist was predictable, but how that twist plays out and affects the story is more more effectively done.

Kudos to Clooney for making the film. It was effective and enjoyable.